'Why was this Thought always uppermost as I walked about the ship? I can scarcely tell. I used to think it arose from the gloomy influence of the accident which occurred as we left Hobson's Bay; but then for weeks after I arrived in England I seldom went to sleep without dreaming I was perishing in a wreck, and that that wreck was the "Royal Charter." There are those who will be inclined to smile at this portion of my communication; but as I hope never to meet with such a fate as that which has befallen those poor souls whose bodies now lie rotting on the coast of Wales, I solemnly declare that, from the hour I placed my foot on board the vessel until the moment when the news reached me that she had gone to pieces, I had a presentiment some dire calamity would overtake her. Some of those who were on board with me will, doubtless, recognize the hand that pens this memoir. Henceforward, the most stolidly sceptical of these must admit that _feeling_ is sometimes higher than _reason_, and that there are more things under heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our material philosophy. I should not waste space to chronicle these presentiments--which the majority of readers will, I am aware, regard, and perhaps naturally so, as idle--had they not arisen with me in a manner so utterly unaccountable, and been fulfilled in a manner so utterly disastrous. 'And at this point, as bearing somewhat upon these forebodings, I may as well state that, from first to last--from her birth to her death, as it were--the "Royal Charter" was, except in the all but uniform swiftness of her voyages, an unfortunate vessel. _Imprimis_, she was originally built as a sister boat to the unfortunate "John Tayleur." It will be in the recollection of the reader that, some years ago, this "John Tayleur" was wrecked not very far distant from the spot where the "Charter" went ashore, and with about as many passengers as the "Charter" had on board. There was a great deal written and said at the time about the negligence of the captain, but on inquiry he urged that the wreck had been occasioned through a deviation--the ship was of iron--in the compasses. This explanation was accepted; but it had so much weight with the owners of the "Tayleur" that they at once sold the iron hull of the sister ship they were engaged in building, determining never to have anything more to do with other than wooden vessels. This hull was bought by Messrs. Gibb and Brights, and, as it was originally intended merely for a second-class ship of a thousand or eleven hundred tons, it was, I was told, _lengthened amidships_ by the new owners until it was thirty feet longer than the "Great Britain," or nearly one-half the length of the "Great Eastern." It is unnecessary to add that while this extension of the craft from stem to stern was going on, her beam could never be increased. She was, in fact, more like a long iron arrow than a ship. Her extreme length,